Priestesses in white robes raced across the open meadow in a panic. An arrow took one of the women in the back.
Lhaurel tried to reach for her powers again as her head turned in the direction the arrow had come from, but—once again—found only emptiness. The feeling bore no resemblance whatsoever to how Lhaurel had felt before she had been broken. That had felt like a wall or barrier she had to get through. Now, even that was gone. Lhaurel felt a sliver of fear claw down her throat and into her heart. She paused to catch her breath, suppressing her fear, and took a moment to study the scene unfolding before her.
A flurry of arrows shot by Lhaurel. She ducked behind an overturned table. Several arrows bit into the wood with a hearty thwack. Lhaurel cursed again, wishing she had a sword. No, wishing she had access to her powers. She could kill them all in barely more than a moment, barely more than the passing of two breaths, with her abilities inside her grasp.
She shuddered at the thought, sickened at herself, then shuddered again. Even under attack, she wasn’t sure she wanted to experience that level of power and communion with death again. Did she? Lhaurel licked her lips and fought down a moment of panic. To defend herself, she would do almost anything. Even that.
Where is Talha?
Lhaurel glanced back where she and the Sister had been standing. Though Lhaurel didn’t spot Talha, her eyes fell on the prone figure of the priestess who had knocked her to the ground.
Why is she still there?
Why wasn’t she getting up and . . . Lhaurel’s thoughts trailed off as her mind registered what she’d already been seeing. Two arrows rose from the fallen woman’s back.
Lhaurel felt the muscles in her face harden and her jawline clench. Her grip on the staff tightened until it almost hurt. In the background, a woman screamed and metal clashed against metal as weapons came together. The hot smell of blood tinged the air as Lhaurel took in a deep, purposeful breath. She held it, and glanced over the top of the table. The archers were shooting individually now instead of as a group, picking off lone targets with uncanny precision. The few Orinai soldiers that remained were locked in deadly combat with the smaller shield-bearers, though they were proving the better in the confrontation against their larger foes.
Lhaurel ducked back down behind the table and made a quick decision. The archers and other attackers were distracted. If she could get behind them, she could take the archers by surprise. She knew she wouldn’t be able to do enough damage to change the course of the battle, not without her powers, not on her own, but she could distract them long enough to perhaps allow a few of the others to get away. And maybe she’d be able to find someone on the way that would be able to help her do a little more.
Where was Talha?
Ignoring the rational part of her mind that told her she was being an idiot, Lhaurel dashed out from behind her scanty cover and raced for one of the overturned wagons. The gatheriu remained hitched in place between the runners, though the wooden frame was now pinned beneath the creature’s massive carcass. Dozens of arrows bristled from the golden brown fur.
An arrow skipped against the ground at Lhaurel’s feet, but she didn’t give it much more than a passing thought. She reached the overturned wagon and dashed behind it to the safety it provided. Several priestesses wearing Lhaurel’s color huddled there.
“Sister!” one of them breathed. “What’s going on? Please help us.” The woman was young, younger than Lhaurel even, and her face burned an ashen grey streaked with the marks of tears. One of the other priestesses, far older and looking much calmer despite what was going on, placed a hand on the first woman’s shoulder and hushed her.
“Do not make requests of a Sister,” the older woman hissed. “To do so is death to us all.” This said, the woman pulled a small knife from her belt and raised it to her companion’s throat in an unhesitating motion.
“What in the seven hells do you think you’re doing?” Lhaurel snapped, smacking the older woman’s hand away with enough force that the knife flew from her grip. “I forbid you to do anything to this woman. Can’t you see she’s frightened?”
The older woman blinked, confusion clear in her expression, though the younger priestess simply wept silent tears, adding more streaks down her pale, frightened face.
“Who are these men?” Lhaurel pressed, once she was sure the older woman wasn’t going to try and retrieve the knife. “What do they want here?”
“It is not our place to speculate over such matters, Sister,” the older woman said, mouth a thin line. “Ours is but to serve our Sister in her Progression.”
Lhaurel grabbed the woman’s shoulder as a scream of pain ripped through the air, cutting over the din of metal clashing against metal. “Do you hear that?” Lhaurel asked. “That’s the sound of people dying. If you don’t want to be next, follow me and do exactly as I say.”
Lhaurel looked around at the other woman, meeting each of their gazes in turn. Each of them held Lhaurel’s eyes only for the briefest of instances and Lhaurel felt a knot well up in her stomach that left a bitter taste in her mouth. It was clear that whatever else was going on, even a sure and instant death, they were still more afraid of her—a Sister—than they were of the men killing indiscriminately near them, just as Samsin had been.
“As you command, Sister,” the older priestess said with a slight nod.
“Gather what weapons you can. You can use the wetta powers, right?” When the older woman gave her a blank look, Lhaurel tried something else. “You can heal people with your powers, yes? Manipulate water?”
The priestesses all nodded, not meeting her eye.
“Good. Take whatever weapons you can and gather your powers. If one of you gets wounded, the others will heal them. Don’t let anyone die and don’t do anything to get yourselves killed, alright?” Lhaurel wasn’t sure why she cared, but was relieved when they all nodded, again.
Several of them pulled out short knives from their belts. The blades looked more ceremonial than functional, but they were better than nothing. A few of the others, including the younger woman with the ashen face, rummaged around on the ground and in the back of the wagon and came back with an array of weapons that included a meat cleaver, a cudgel, and something that looked like a scythe for cutting grain.
“Well then,” Lhaurel said. “Follow me.”
Lhaurel took a single look over them to see that they were ready and then stepped out from behind the wagon and straight into a trio of short men bearing shields.
The three men hesitated for a moment longer than Lhaurel. Lhaurel brought her staff up and spun it in a low arch that took the legs out from under one of the men before the other two even moved. The man fell in a crunch of metal and rock and his sword went flying. Lhaurel took two quick steps forward, spinning the staff over her head and back around as she would her sword, aiming for the swordsman who had been in the center of the group.
She wasn’t holding a sword, though. The back end of the staff struck something behind Lhaurel and one of the priestesses cried out in pain. The two swordsmen were able to take a few steps back and their companion leapt to his feet as Lhaurel backed up, hissing at those behind her to get out of the way.
The three men glanced at one another and one of them grinned, a look made sinister by the thin beard and fresh scar across his otherwise youthful face. He looked no different than a Rahuli, aside from the pale complexion of his skin, though Lhaurel didn’t recognize him. Besides, no Rahuli would attack a group of mostly women—not anymore at least, not now that Khari was among them. She’d tear apart any man who tried.
Lhaurel spun her staff before her, resetting her mind and feet to remind herself that she was using a staff, not a sword. She felt sluggish and slow, especially without access to her blood magic abilities, and the staff was not her weapon of choice, not by any level of the seven hells, but she wasn’t about to retreat. Not this time. Not again. This wasn’t an unwinnable fight, like the Sisters entering the Sharani Desert and threatening their entire existence while Beryl was trying to drive them out. This fight she could still win, mostly because they underestimated her.
The two men on each end darted forward at the same time, the one in the middle hanging back momentarily. Lhaurel let them get within a few feet of her, one man leading with his shield, the other his sword, then spun to one side, ducking around the man with his shield raised on her right and spinning the staff around with her. She halted her turn as the man ran passed and jabbed the staff’s butt hard into the back of the man’s knee. He crumpled with a shout.
“Keep him down!” Lhaurel shouted over her shoulder, hoping the priestesses would hear and act on her words.
The third swordsman, the one who had hesitated, darted in as his other companion leapt over his fallen friend and tried to move in behind Lhaurel. Lhaurel sidestepped, grateful that the tiredness in her muscles wasn’t growing so quickly as to be called exhaustion yet, and put her back up against the dead gatheriu, using its massive bulk to offer her some shelter. The animal smelled of dust, sweat, and blood. It would limit her ability to swing the staff, but she needed the protection if she was on her own.
The two men fell in ahead of her, ignoring the pair of priestesses that swooped in behind them and finished off their companion.
Lhaurel felt sweat bead on her forehead, but found herself suppressing a small smile of exhilaration. For several weeks now, dark thoughts had plagued her. She felt as if she’d betrayed her people somehow, by going with the Sisters instead of staying to fight. Beyond that, guilt still haunted her dreams over what she’d been forced to do in the Oasis. But this, fighting and defending both herself and others, granted an exhilaration and thrill that burned away the lingering self-cynicism. This was Lhaurel, stubborn and resistant. This felt
right
somehow. She was one who acted instead of letting others control her through their own actions.
“Are you really sure you want to attack a Sister?” Lhaurel asked in a broken mixture of the “slave tongue” and Orinai.
The soldier on Lhaurel’s left hesitated, though the one on the right kept coming. Lhaurel readied her staff, hoping that one of the priestesses would take the initiative and distract one of them, though she knew the hope was a foolish one. Her earlier confidence in being able to take down all three men wavered slightly, though it was a pale thought against the thrill of the fight itself
The soldier on the left stumbled, and then seemed to catch himself, before falling headlong into the dirt, shield skidding across the ground before him. An arrow stood up from the back of his neck. An instant later, the other soldier fell, also transfixed by a red-fletched shaft.
Lhaurel looked over in the direction the arrows had come, not sure what to expect. Blood thundered in her ears in accompaniment to her beating heart.
Talha stood at the head of over a hundred archers clad entirely in red, her scarlet hair— now free of the odd bun from earlier—billowing out behind her, caught by the breeze. The blood-red stone on her staff shone with a burning, almost flame-like light and, for the briefest instant, Lhaurel thought she saw a faint cloud of reddish mist around it. Then it was gone.
Lhaurel let out a long breath and then sucked in a short shallow one, careful not to linger on the scent of fear, sweat, blood, and death that hung thick in the air around her. She kept one eye on Talha, who looked far more regal and deadly than Lhaurel had ever seen her before. Up until that moment, Talha had seemed almost entirely a bookish, unimposing thing, especially when compared to Sellia or the other Sister Lhaurel had met, but in that moment, standing at the head of the archers and with her staff held before her, she’d been as majestic and regal as anything Lhaurel had ever seen. Holy, even. And terrifying.
Lhaurel shook her head, trying to clear it. The last thought had come from what had seemed a great distance away, a passing tendril of memory attaching itself to a current image, like the feeling a moment has happened before, even when truth dictates that hasn’t. She glanced back at the priestesses behind her, not sure what to expect.
The younger priestess stood at the front of the others, her back turned to the still figure on the ground behind her. Red glinted on her hands, but she stood with her head bowed, facing Lhaurel with subservient attention. The older woman and the others stood behind the girl, all with heads bowed. None of them looked at the dead man at their feet.
“Are you alright?” Lhaurel asked them.
“We are at your service, Honored Sister,” the older woman said. “How may we serve you?” A tremble caught the woman’s voice for a moment, but it steadied after a short moment. She kept her head down as she spoke, however.
The younger priestess that stood at the forefront raised her head for the briefest of moments, catching Lhaurel’s eye, before her eyes darted back to the ground. The girl’s face was still ashen and drawn, streaked with tears and a reddish smudge on her chin, but the eyes had changed. Lhaurel recognized a bit of the emotions that flashed there for a tiny moment. Pride. Anger. Fear. It amazed Lhaurel how frequently those three emotions existed together within the same individual.
“Are you alright, Lhaurel?” Talha asked, walking toward her. Talha walked through the dead carefully, avoiding the bodies and pools of blood that lay around them, staining the ground a familiar red color.